Free Republic

When it comes to improving fact-checking, most of the focus tends to be on how fact checkers select the claims they examine, the sources they turn to in determining “truth” and the strength of their arguments. While it receives less attention, the editorializing language fact checkers use can be just as harmful to the public’s trust in their work. Browse through the first five pages of FactCheck.org’s Barack Obama archive and fact checks of the former president’s statements are headlined with relatively clinical terms such as “misrepresents,” “misleading” and “cherry-picks.” In contrast, the first five pages of the site’s Donald...

Shortened title. Full title: Judicial Watch: Docs Reveal FBI Cover Up of ‘Chart’ of Potential Violations of Law by Hillary Clinton ‘I’ll make sure Andy tells Mike to keep these in his pocket’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it received 186 pages of records from the Department of Justice that include emails documenting an evident cover up of a chart of potential violations of law by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Judicial Watch obtained the records through a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed respond to a December 4, 2017...

In a contentious Oval Office meeting, President Donald Trump and the Democratic congressional leaders — Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer — disagreed over funding for a border wall, mangling some facts in the process. The president claimed that “a lot of the wall is built,” and he cited statistics purporting to show “it’s very effective” at stopping illegal immigration. But his figures correspond to those in a Customs and Border Protection video on various border security strategies deployed before he took office, from 1992 to 2016. And in most sectors Trump cited as successful, there is very little fencing...

Rick Santorum grossly mischaracterized euthanasia practices in the Netherlands during an appearance at a faith conference. He overstated the rate of euthanasia and falsely claimed that the elderly are being killed against their will and wear “do not euthanize me” bracelets: Santorum claimed legal euthanasia is responsible for “10 percent of all deaths for the Netherlands.” Government statistics show euthanasia is climbing, but represented only 2.3 percent in 2010, according to the most recent data. Santorum added that half of the people euthanized were killed “involuntarily.” A representative of the Royal Dutch Medical Association said “there are no forced cases...